Graduate Awards and Honors

PhD Student Awards

Outstanding Service Award

Presented in recognition of extraordinary service to the department

2019

Tamara Lehman

Tami was the kind of student who would offer to help with an event before anyone even realized help was needed. She became a go-to volunteer for every type of event. In addition to fruitful involvement in Duke’s ACM-W chapter and the Triangle’s GWIS chapter, Tami was a dream recruiter for the ECE department – brilliant, hard-working, engaged in her work, aware of the greater Duke and engineering communities – we couldn’t have asked for a better representative of the type of students we want to recruit to the ECE Department. Tami also came to the rescue for ECE as a repeat TA. We asked her to TA many more times than the average student, because of her expertise in a variety of important classes. And of course, also because she was fantastic TA!

Outstanding Dissertation Award

In recognition of scholarly excellence

2019

Mohamed Ibrahim

Mohamed’s research interests include EDA and Optimization Techniques; Formal Methods and Applied Machine Learning; System-on-Chip Design and Testing; Microfluidic Biochips, etc. In this 5-year Ph.D. study, Mohamed coauthored two books, 3 book chapters, 15 journal papers (9 on the flagship journals in his area, IEEE society TCAD, 1 on Proceeding of IEEE, the flagship magazine of IEEE, and 1 on TC), and 18 conference papers on the top venues. His works also include 4 keynote/feature/ spotlight papers and 1 best paper award from the largest conference in Europe. During his study, Mohamed worked on 4 different but also integrated topics spanning from health, security, and CPS using microfluidic chips, which construct a comprehensive and systematic research work. Mohamed received the 2018 Council of Graduate Schools/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award. The depth and breadth of Mohamed’s research serve as a true exemplar of a Ph.D. student.

Outstanding Dissertation Award

In recognition of scholarly excellence

2019

James Thostensen

James’s dissertation was scientifically exceptional and simultaneously has immense potential for social impact. This is a rare combination and, coupled with the excellent research required to obtain these results, make his dissertation truly stand out. The focus of Jimmy’s dissertation was to understand the material, electrochemical, and biological mechanisms required to efficiently disinfect liquid human waste, otherwise known as blackwater, for developing countries. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, the application of Jimmy’s dissertation research was to develop a blackwater disinfection system that could be powered in “off-grid” locations, has a long service-lifetime, does not need additional chemicals for sanitation, and can be operated for < $0.05 per user per day. The scientific accomplishments and future social impact of James’s research make his dissertation truly outstanding.